I hope you all had/are having a great holiday! I got to spend some time with my fella's family over Christmas and that was wonderful. They have grandkids so they did the whole Christmas Is Magical thing. I absolutely love Christmas. I'm not really into gifts, exactly - the best part for me is hanging out, enjoying family, and listening to carols.... really! I've decided that next year I will, in lieu of gifts, sponsor a needy family.

I did buy myself something a special something yesterday. I've been wanting one for a long time, now, and I wasn't ready to make the plunge..... until I saw they were on sale for 60% off, and I almost-simultaneously got an email from Skyscape giving me a $50 gift certificate for participating in their scholarship contest. I guess some good came from it after all :)

So, when the planets aligned - I bought a BlackBerry. It's a Curve 8530 - last year's model, I think - hence the sale (see below... like my Link wallpaper? ;)


I know, I know, you can all pick your jaws up off the floor - it's not an iPhone.

Reasons I did not buy an iPhone:

-They are ungodly expensive
-They are slightly less expensive if you choose sell your soul to a carrier on a 3 year contract......and I don't do contracts, anymore
-iPhones will be a nice upgrade from this one when I am ready/employed, unless Android makes me happier with less money
-I still love QWERTY!

So far I am quite pleased with it, except for falling prey to the dreaded Disappearing App World Icon. Luckily, there is a metric TON of BB resources around the interwebs and I was able to get it resolved with a few Googlin's and some wasted time setting up the settings I'd lost.

I'm impressed with the integration with just about everything. I had a Palm about 7 years ago, and I spent ages getting it all set up. Then I let the battery die one day.... losing everything. The BB software sets my mind at ease with the Desktop Manager (for Mac, hooray!) and the syncing and the backups. Lesson learned in syncing more frequently AKA before major un/installs or after extensive setting changes.

This model has WiFi and whatever wireless network Koodo offers. It's not 3G, I don't think, and not superfast, but I am new to the idea of mobile browsing so it works for me.

So far, I've installed apps for both of my banks, Dropbox, KeePass, Facebook, Google Mobile,  and Skyscape. I am also SO PLEASED that I can handle my email without being on WiFi or within range of a public computer. It made me twitchy staying over at my boyfriend's house and not being able to instantly access my email. I think I am an email junkie.

I spent quite a bit of time browsing Skyscape trying to decide how to maximize my gift certificate. They also had a deal going that, if I purchased by Dec 31, I would get an additional 25% off. They also suggested I share the link, so here you go: www.skyscape.com/share25off.... offer expires March 31, 2011.

I ended up purchasing a few titles:

• RNotes®: Nurse's Clinical Pocket Guide
• Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses
• Davis's Comprehensive Handbook of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests with Nursing Implications

They threw in a med calculator and the International Classification of Disease as well.

So far, I am happy with Skyscape. I emailed them a problem with my order last night and they had it resolved by noon. I was NOT thrilled with the installation process, which could use an App World update, because it was hunt-and-peck 24 digit serial numbers to install each title. I'm also not thrilled with the setup of the Skyscape app. For something that I paid for, it sure does spend a lot of time trying to convince me to download other free software.

Anyhow, I am pretty excited to use my BB in clinicals! There is a TON of information in my pocket. The drug guide seems a lot handier than my hard copy - search for drug names and the info is there, no holding books open required. RNotes also has a good mix of L&D resources in it. The med calculator is pretty good too, it has everything from IV infusions to Apgar scoring.

More reviews and from-the-trenches stories of using my BB in clinicals to follow in the new year :)

Best wishes for 2011, everyone!

I don't know if I have previously shared one of my guiding life philosophies, but I will now.

After a FANTASTIC decompression in the sun (and a pretty fantastic sunburn, might I add), a red eye flight, and return to the snowy northern wastes, I checked my email to find the following -

Congratulations,

You have been chosen to be a part of the 2011 CNSA national conference's national team! 

Aaaaannnnnnnd cue heart palpitations. There are only 5 of us on the team. For the WHOLE COUNTRY. zomg. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one from Alberta.

So now I realized that I actually will have to roll up my sleeves and make this trip happen, aka booking even more time off work, sending my regrets to the STTI induction, and pleading my case with the school faculty as I would be missing 4 days of L&D clinical*.

And practice, practice, practice what I am going to say, so that awful presentation Will. Not. Be. Repeated.

In front of the likes of 600+ CNSA members, Tilda Shalof, and Jean Watson, no less!!

* I think I sent a pretty compelling argument to the faculty. I may have indicated that the academic nature of the conference should be valid course credit. I also may have indicated that it would be a pretty sweet name drop to my fairly-recently-accredited university.

** I also checked all of my final course grades and found that I kicked ass on my finals. Especially my Nursing/Acutely Ill course, which was the one I really cared about. Booya!

Into a puddle of joyful, feel-it-in-ma-bones, weightless BLISS. I am DONE! 3rd year is half over! Partying tonight with some of my ladies and then I am flying out to Puerto Vallarta tomorrow.

Interesting substory - as I was exiting my L&D exam yesterday, I checked my Facebook messages on my phone. Picture my surprise when it read "5 friends have commented on your changed relationship status". Um, wot?

So I investigate further and I see "undergradRN is no longer in a relationship" with a bunch of people commenting WTF... which crosses my mind as well... and at the bottom there is a comment from my boyfriend, with a sadface, asking if he was still going to meet me at the airport tomorrow afternoon in PVR! Luckily he also had an email from me from a few days ago that set that record straight, lol! Seriously, what girlfriend would break up with her guy BEFORE the wonderful holiday anyway ;)

Best I can figure is I got sidejacked via FireSheep. My password is 20 characters of upper, lower, numbers, and symbols, so I'd pay money to whoever managed to crack it.

See you kids next week!!

As seen on an AllNurses.com post, and apparently poached from a new (to me) blog - Those Emergency Blues:

C subsect. 2) Fine, I'm getting back to work, I swears!

My term paper for Healthy Populations went, as you can see, swimmingly. I am sooooo surprised and pleased! This takes the edge off my final for that class, for sure. I haven't done that well on a paper since first year. Yay!

The paper topic was interesting, too. I wrote about the fairly recent decision to do away with the Canadian Long Form Census, performed in the past by Statistics Canada.

I am feeling perked up for my last 2 finals tomorrow and Tuesday. Then, MEXICO!!!!

I realized it while I was writing out notes for compartment syndrome.

I got the giggles... which was bad, because I was in the silent study room (and it was actually silent for a change, even with 5 people in there)

And then it got worse. I started crying tears of lol from holding in my giggles to a gentle semi-silent nose laugh, which resulted in me choking on it and making a huge reverberating SNORRRRK sound. I felt the eye daggers fly at me and figured I'd better leave the room to get straightened out. It was just as well because my coffee needed a refill.

For some reason I found my notation of compartment syndrome absolutely and ridiculously hilarious as I transcribed it - using the very same descriptors as the text--

"COMPARTMENT SYNDROME: Occurs when the muscle is swollen and hard on palpation and the pain is deep... throbbing... unrelenting... inside the tight fascia. "

OMG, I might as well be writing some torrid ladyporn romance novel.

I am officially going nuts. Thank you and good night.

3 things the average student can count on.

I am stressed, major stressed, about these finals because this is the first year there aren't any cut and dry answers. Science is cut and dry. Nursing answers are about priorities, and I am never sure if my priorities are the same as my instructor's.




It's also frustrating because sitting a naughty horse is the first/only time my instructor had anything decent to say about my riding ability. Well, there's something to be said for being a country girl riding greenbroke horses out in open fields, I guess.

Still, dealing with another horseback-related back injury is sooooo not on my To Do List.

Here's hoping that next week they give me the most bored, I-only-canter-for-food geriatric equine they have next week.

If any of you nurse-types are also horse-types, I would LOVE some advice on Mr. Poppin-Fresh.

**This is a bounce, for the uninitiated - the horse does not stride between jumps, instead it lands and immediately jumps again:

Diaphoresis++, blurred vision, tachycardia, fearful affect, agitation, alogia....

What are these symptoms related to?

...

...

Public speaking....

Yes, in an entirely safe environment filled with people I know, I completely flipped shit on my part of the presentation.

I don't even know what happened but I couldn't WAIT to get out of there.

Oh, I hope the end of the semester comes soon.

In other news, and except for my performance, the presentation was pretty good. It was for our topic "Poverty and Pregnancy" I bought $5 of McDonald's and $5 of a healthier lunch food. It was a cool comparison. The healthy lunch was a small salmon filet and a side of low fat pasta salad. At McD's I was able to buy a small coffee, a muffin, 2 blueberry pies, and a McDouble burger. Then I highlighted the nutritional and (ginormous) caloric differences between the two lunch options and the importance of patient teaching.

I also found this video which was a total gold mine. Thank you, Google. Again.



13 days until the end of finals and a few days' stay in sunny Mexico... *stares wistfully at calendar*

Well OBVIOUSLY we have a WHISTLEBLOWER up in Sweden. He's raidin' ya government documents, he's snatchin' yo internal emails, try'na post 'em on WikiLeaks so y'all need to hide ya government officials, hide ya diplomats, and hide ya state secrets, cuz they're releasin' info on errbody up in here.

You don't have to come and confess, cuz Interpol's lookin for you on unrelated sexual assault charges and we gon' find you. Sarah Palin says we will hunt you like Al Qaeda and we gon' FIND you. So you can run and tell THAT, Julian Assange.